Spring 2011 by The Point Magazine

vol 6. #2

Editor’s Note

Melissa Gutierrez EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Angela Nickerson DESIGN EDITOR

Stephen Hernandez Alex Campbell

also wherever the work takes place. If I tell you I am at my desk right now, in a green director’s chair and waiting for my hot water to be ready for tea, you might be able to picture it well enough to feel like you’re there. You can be in two different places, two different times, all at once. Stories cheat time and space, but they can only do that if two things happen: if the storyteller pays attention enough to create a real time and space, and if the story-reader pays enough attention to see the real time and space created before them.

want to frame the following set of works with a fact: people take up time and space. Your body occupies a certain volume in the universe, and your actions occur across a series of seconds, minutes, hours, and years. This is simple stuff, but stuff that’s hard to remember in an increasingly busy world that tries to ignore basic physical limitations; a world that is constantly trying to be more and do more with less effort and less time. It’s a sort of environment that sets the standards for success in our culture today: getting the best things the fastest, or overcoming the hardest obstacles with the most measurable results. The people who do these things, typically, are the people who get their names all over the internet, who get their pictures in the paper — the people who get your attention. In this world, under these standards of success, time and space seem like things to be earned. All art, at its best, plays a double role: it exists as itself in its own particular time and space, and it serves as a representative of another certain time and space. Every story, every photograph, every collection of words and images is almost a sort of time travel — allows you to be where you are and

As a staff, we’ve done our best to create real time and space. We tried to remove those standards of success that make life a contest. We took the time and made the space to hear and re-hear and look over and over again at stories from a group of people who gave us their time and shared their space. When we did this, we found all kinds of good things, all kinds of hard obstacles, all kinds of evidence, all kinds of ways to measure all sorts of successes — all this in one person, all this in every person. Everyone became suddenly more multidimensional than we ever expected.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

DESIGNER

Katelynn Camp

DESIGNER

MANAGING EDITOR

Tamara Welter STAFF ADVISOR

Jacob Frischknecht Brenna Peirson DESIGNER

Katharyn Stong DESIGNER

Karissa Tse DESIGNER

Kevin Burch

FREELANCE DESIGNER

Bethany Cissel PHOTO EDITOR

Job Ang

PHOTOGRAPHER

Jordan Nakamura PHOTOGRAPHER

Sarah Snyder

PHOTOGRAPHER

Jennifer Trahan PHOTOGRAPHER

Kelsey Heng

WEB AND MEDIA EDITOR

Matthew Okada

04 08 12 16 20 24 32 34 38 40

10 in 1 A Reason to Rise In Process Repositioned Exchanged America Dreaming Faces Little House on the Heights Bigger House on the Coast Echoes of Eden

SENIOR COPY EDITOR

Callie Miller

SENIOR COPY EDITOR

This magazine is really about the amount of attention we pay to ourselves and to others. It is about the idea that it takes time and space not just to be, but also to see and to hear. Sound and light waves travel across space, and they take time to get to your ears and eyes. It’s why you hear the thunder and the see lightning at different times — unless you get really close.

Stephanie Gertsch

So get close. Read the stories, spend time with the pictures. Be with them. Existence is not a thing to be earned, but a thing that is there already. All you need to do is make space, take your time, pay attention, and enjoy.

WRITER

ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR

Michelle Hong

ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR

Alyson Luthi

ASSISTANT COPY EDITOR

Candace Arce-Lindsay WRITER

Claire Callaway Zachary Fu WRITER

Adrienne Nunley

1st Place General Excellence 2008, 2010 CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION

WRITER

Sarah Jean Seman WRITER

Laura Stanley pointmag.biola.edu

Table of Contents

BUSINESS MANAGER

Gold Medalist 2009

COLUMBIA SCHOLASTIC PRESS ASSOCIATION

Magazine Pacemaker 2008

ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS

Michelle Orgill PR MANAGER

Cover: Rebecca Aulie, photo by Stephen Hernandez

10 in 1

TEN FAMILIAR FACES, ONE MILE FROM CAMPUS

We mostly serve residents from La Mirada. That’s most of our business because we’re such a small town — they’ve grown up here, they’ve lived here all their lives, and so they want to be buried here. Ted started working as a groundskeeper at Olive Lawn Memorial Park while attending La Mirada high school. Maintaining the 11 acres for 2 years, Ted then left to pursue other things, and eventually came back to the family operated business in 2008. Although the 25-year-old supervisor is not part of the original family owned company, Ted explains that he’s in it for the long run, and will have the privilege of taking over the company in the future. Ted proudly shares that this is possibly one of the oldest run businesses in the town of La Mirada—started in 1924, in close competition with the water company.

Ted, Olive Lawn Memorial Park

I have a lot of regulars. I have this old man — I don’t even know his name. But he came in every Thursday… and I knew his whole order. So whenever he walked in the door I would just put his order in, and he would always play the Lotto, and he always said if he won I’d get half…they call him my boyfriend, but he’s definitely not my boyfriend — he’s like ninety. Amy started working at the Carriage House when she was 17. She lives right down the street, and she felt comfortable with this restaurant because her family ate there often. Accepted as a hostess, Amy worked that position for two years and rose to a waitress position, which she’s had for the last three years. Balancing the lives of student and waitress, Amy works at the restaurant four days a week and attends Fullerton College two days a week.

by Bethany Cissel / photos by Kelsey Heng

Amy, the Carriage House

I like doing alterations, and I like people, too. Ruth has owned and maintained Express Cleaners for the last twenty-two years. She is a warm, friendly woman, and she expresses her deep love for Biola students (10% off dry cleaning services). Her customers quickly become a part of the family; Her daughter explains that 80% of Ruth’s clients have been with her the last 22 years. It has become a generational loyalty — older customers’ children bring in their children to get their clothes cleaned, altered, or hemmed. Her background carries a traditional working mindset — very few family vacations, work everyday, and invest in the latest technology. Ruth is a dedicated employer, providing excellence and high quality, but her love for the business revolves around her customers. Her daughter shares, “I think the reason why customers keep coming back is her personality. I think that beyond the language barrier, I really believe that my mom has a warmth about her and people gravitate towards that.”

Ruth, Express Cleaners

4 - 10 in 1

I’m about the youngest guy here, and I try to get them going. Lou waved the East Coast goodbye and moved from Connecticut to California in 1959 — and has been here ever since. He worked with sporting goods his whole life, but after retiring last October, moved to local retirement home The Palms. Lou’s wife passed away in 2009 from leukemia. His love for people helped solidify the decision of moving to The Palms. Lou’s day is packed with activities, games, special events, and visiting his daughter and two grandkids down the street. His specialty sport is beanbag baseball, and although he’s only been on the team a few months, Lou shares that the Palms team has held the championship title eight years in a row. The team practices three times a week, and competes with surrounding retirement centers.

Lou, The Palms

We as a public library really have this mission to have free access to information for everyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re rich or they’re poor or they’re new to the country or they don’t speak English very well or they’re uncomfortable with the whole idea of libraries.

I work seven days a week, 14-16 hour days — my only break is on days that I’m racing. I ride to work a few times a week, I ride home a few times a week … on those days I’ll have up to four hours on a bike … I’m immersed in cycling, I get to play all day.

Jennifer has been the La Mirada community library manager for twenty years. She’s been interested in library work fresh out of high school, and dedicated to her love for literature and equipping the community with free information. Jennifer feels responsible and eager to share about the plethora of resources the library has to offer, including printers, free WiFi, public events, children’s story readings, a large database of free resources, and of course, books.

Steve, a lifelong cyclist, combined his passions for riding and business and opened The Cyclery Bike Shop in 2010. In this environment, Steve manages paperwork, builds bikes, and loyally serves his customers. He has been racing for 15 years. Steve loves his job and loves his hobby — it’s all about biking.

Steve, The Cyclery Bike Shop

Jennifer, La Mirada Library

When I was a kid … we would swim all day and they could never get me out of the pool.

When someone walks in the door, I don’t even have to take their measurements. I already know what coat size they wear — what pant size they wear … I use a tape measurer, but I really don’t need to.

Carla comes to Splash Aquatic Center to swim almost every day. She keeps swimming to maintain peace of mind. Listening to a wide array of music — jazz, R&B, funk, and even Gregorian chant — Carla freely dances and swims in the 25yard pool to the waterproof iPod in her ears.

Javier became the Rent-A-Tux owner six years ago. Purchased from an “Uncle”-type figure, Javier now partners with the previous owner’s son. He explains that the original store opened in 1965, and it has been family-operated by various La Mirada citizens. Together the tux rental duo serves La Mirada and beyond, assisting men of all ages in choosing formal attire for various occasions, particularly weddings and high school proms.

Her vivacious and friendly presence is well known to the staff and other regular swimmers — she likes to go “where people know [her] name”. “This will be my fourth year [swimming at Splash]. You know why? It makes me happy. I try to spend a lot of time where people know me, people see me — you feel like you’re part of the family”

Javier, La Mirada Rent-A-Tux

Carla, Splash Aquatic Center

One time I went to go do a demonstration for an elementary school… as soon as I walked in everyone was like ‘oh my gosh a black-belt!’ I forget — from the mind of a kid or even from someone who’s not in this realm all the time, it’s very exciting and different to discover all the things we do.

We have a gentleman that comes in who was part of the original Band of Brothers — they have that show on HBO, he’s one of the original guys from the unit and he comes in on a regular basis — at least once a month. Brittoni, a Biola junior, landed a unique job last December: a café worker for Oxman’s Surplus store, which consists of a museum, the Mess Tent café, and a warehouse. Mr. Oxman, now 95, celebrated the store’s 50th anniversary last July with a grand reopening of the café and a redesigned war museum, which holds guns, rockets, WWII memorabilia, gas masks, helmets, and other objects from Mr. Oxman’s personal collection. Customers can get a taste of military life by trying an MRE [meal ready to eat] from the mess tent.

Yvonne started learning martial arts at the age of 13. She received her black belt in just under four years, and started teaching at the age of 16. Now 22 and the chief instructor of Z-Ultimate Self Defense Studio, Yvonne maintains a rigorous workout schedule, teaches private and group lessons, oversees the business aspect of the studio, and manages two other instructors. Her students range from kindergarteners all the way up to a 71-year-old retired cop.

Brittoni, Oxman’s Surplus

Yvonne, Z-Ultimate Self Defense Studio photos on this page by Bethany Cissel

6 - 10 in 1

A Reason to Rise WHAT GETS YOU OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING?

by Candace Arce-Lindsay photos by Kelsey Heng and Bethany Cissel

ometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to get out of bed. Everyday fears, anxieties, weariness, and stress make it difficult to leave the comfort and safety of sleep. Still, there is something that coaxes us into action in the morning, into the struggles and triumphs of each day. On a good day, this something could be the anticipation of seeing a certain pretty face or learning something new. On other days, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing other than pure necessity. The something differs from person to person, and whether it be the drive of hope, the press of responsibility, or the conviction of their calling, it gets them up and going. I asked familiar faces around campus what gets them out of bed in the morning, and their stories show how their experiences get them into each new day.

God be remembered.’ What am I doing with my life if I’m not doing that?” Even though O’Connell has had to endure hardship and great loss in his life, the gift of life that has become so precious to him inspires him to get out of bed every single morning. “God has given me today for a reason,” he states, “and I don’t want to waste it.”

Angie Ramos Angie Ramos has been working at Biola for eight years. She began as a regular employee and was promoted to a manager position after only two years.

with her own daughter Samantha, and, as he grows older, her baby boy Salvador. In the mean time, she continues to set an example of dedicated hard work in each aspect of her job and her life.

“What gets me up in the morning is remembering I have to be ready to go to work,” laughs Ramos. As manager at the Eagle’s Nest eatery on campus, her job is nothing simple. “People think it’s easy,” she shares, “but there is a lot of responsibility involved.” Striving to keep Eagle’s stocked, running efficiently, and keeping student workers in line keeps Ramos busy. “I enjoy the challenge of it, but it has definitely been hard for me to become a manager, because sometimes it’s hard for me to tell others what to do.” Ramos admits to feeling weaknesses in her management, but she acknowledges the consistent growth that she’s experienced over the past five years she’s worked as a manager.

Arek O’Connell Senior Arek O’Connell has been deeply impressed with the importance of living life to the fullest. Two years ago, the murder of his father drove this belief even farther home. His father was stabbed several times by an intoxicated assailant and never recovered from surgery.

Ramos’ mother, who also works for Bon Appetit at Biola, has greatly shaped her work ethic and the way she approaches her job. “My mom is a very important person in my life. I’ve always looked up to her,” Ramos says earnestly. Her mother, Olivia, the third of eight children, was orphaned at a young age and had to raise her five younger siblings while her older brother and sister worked to support the family. The youngest sibling was only six months old when her parents died. “They were so poor that sometimes they went days without food,” Ramos says. “My mother had to struggle to care for her siblings, and I admire her for her strength in going through with that, in spite of all the hardship.” Seeing her mother’s strength has empowered Ramos in the struggles and joys in her own life. “When I was little, my mom taught me how to work hard and how to take care of myself.” Ramos works to share the strength and work ethic she has learned from her mother

10 - A Reason to Rise

“If you told me that my dad was going to die at 45, I never would have believed it,” O’Connell says. His father’s unexpected death has shown O’Connell how valuable every opportunity in life is: “I want to ask the questions ‘what does God want me to do, why did God choose to give me life, and what do I need to do with that?’” O’Connell’s investment in junior high ministry, coupled with his conviction of life’s value gets him out of bed every morning.

Stephen Adamcik “My dog gets me out of bed in the morning.” Steve Adamcik, professor and golf instructor here at Biola University, grins. He turns to a more serious note, and begins sharing about his drive to build strong relationships while teaching golf and working towards his master’s degree — the things that encourage him to rise each day. He enjoys teaching because he loves interacting with his students. He hopes to work spiritual formation into his golf instrutction, especially as he pursues a Master of Arts degree in Old Testament at Talbot School of Theology. “My swing was horrible,” says Adamcik of his golf skills when he first moved to California. “Here I was, small town Michigan kid, and I thought that my golf swing was great and that California was going to be my golden ticket.” Adamcik shares his struggles on moving out to California and plugging in to the professional golf community. Not long

after moving, he joined The Professional Golfers Career College to hone his skills, where he met professional golf instructor Kent Brown. Brown took Adamcik under his wing and helped him improve his swing, but he learned more than he expected from his instructor. “Kent showed me that, as a Christian in this world, relationships should be one of the priorities in life,” shares Adamcik. “He was really interested in getting to know you and investing in you, and not just valuing you for what you could offer by way of skill and connections.” Adamcik hopes to foster this kind of relationship with his own students as he teaches here at Biola. Adamcik’s extensive experience in the professional golf world and his friendship with Kent Brown taught him the importance of relationships and made him a strong advocate of golf as a bridge for relational gaps. “Golf is like another language,” says Adamcik. “You could have absolutely nothing in common with a person besides the fact that you both pick up a club once in a while, and you’ve got a great starting point to build rapport with someone.” Using golf as a ministry has become an avenue to unite both his motive to build meaningful, invested relationships and his desire to encourage spiritual growth. “Hopefully, I can be a blessing to everybody, and we can have a little fun on the golf course at the same time.”

“I want to ask the questions ‘what does God want me to do, why did God choose to give me life, and what do I need to do with that?’”

During his early teen years, he found out his biological father had abandoned his mother after impregnating her. This revelation brought many inner struggles of feeling unwanted and worthless. At this difficult time in his life, O’Connell’s youth pastor pressed upon him the great value of and possibilities for his life. “He told me, ‘Your life is counted worthy by the Lord, so you need to make the best out of it,’” O’Connell recalls. Looking back at the trial-filled period of his own youth, he realized the best way to make an impact was to interact with kids that in the same place he used to be. O’Connell has come to realize that his story allows him to reach youth on a level that, without his life experience, would be impossible. O’Connell hopes to set an example by living his life for God and for others. “My prayer is ‘Let Arek be forgotten and

“It really does come down to discipline and trying to build that discipline right away.” by Sarah Jean Seman / photos by Jennifer Trahan

In Process

iscipline. For most, the word means self-denial and willpower: losing sleep to study for an exam, remembering to pay the phone bill on time, or passing by the display case lined with plump swirly-top cupcakes. Afterwards, it’s the ‘A’ on an exam, the perfect credit score, or the clothes that fit that make the small triumphs seem worthwhile. Few enjoy the process of disciplining themselves. It seems a bit monastic to actually appreciate the solitary triumphs that receive little attention from others. What if those solitary moments of discipline themselves, and not only the end results, were actually the most rewarding part? The lives of artists and monks often seem very similar, says Biola senior art major Katherine Long, referring to several artists and thinkers who have compared the two. Creative acts are primarily solitary processes, so confinement and self-denial seem tied to both artists and monks. For creators, like artists and musicians, the public acknowledgement of their work seems a flicker of time compared to the hours on hours spent preparing in studios or practice rooms by themselves. A composition that an audience spends a mere

six minutes listening to likely took the composer four to six months to write, explains Joel Balzun, a junior music major. A full-length opera may even take two years to compose. “If you aren’t diligent, then composers just kind of drop out,” Balzun says. A piece of music takes such an extended time to create that composers often have to take a break to refresh their mind and their sonic palate. While the audience might perceive only one homogeneous hum, the composer has spent days creating a unique voice for each instrument. Thus, composers need a broad knowledge of different instruments. Balzun’s own one-man band consists of the piano, baritone, trombone, violin, viola and his own voice. Tyler Wigglesworth, a junior music major with an emphasis in voice, studies the communication of music. “You can never turn off musical training,” he says. The information students learn in one class bleeds right into the next class session, he explains. “It really does come down to discipline and trying to build that discipline right away.” During

TYLER WIGGLESWORTH

Wigglesworth says seeing the skill of others is also encouraging. Their proficiency urges Wigglesworth to continue his pursuits — and their skills are a testament to the achievements discipline makes possible. By investing time and energy in yourself, you validate your own acknowledgement of your abilities. This is why discipline will always remain a paramount virtue: it connects what could be with what actually is. It shows respect for the art and the respect for the potential in oneself. “You can be creative all you want,” Long says, “but if you don’t work hard there’s nothing to show for it.” When you are being judged by what you create, pure competitiveness entwines with genuine love, Long explains. The only way that an artist can display his or her talent and share the beauty that they perceive around them is through diligence. Besides this, Long continues, the genuine love of a task can bring pleasure. She uses the example of a night she spent drawing a self-portrait that was due the next day.

KATHERINE LONG

his freshman year, Wigglesworth said he tucked information in his short-term memory and now he often has to go back to re-learn it. “I wish I would have devoted more things to heart instead of devoting them to the test,” he admits. Music and art go beyond just poring over books and papers, demanding instead that the creator train his or her body’s senses and perception skills. As Katherine Long turned through the pages of her sketch book, which were covered with nimbly-formed faces, she explained that a lot of art is “taking the time to actually look and record it and not letting it pass by.” An artist has the pleasure of really studying the quirks, the colors and the unique characteristics of the elements that most others rush past. “Beautiful things are exciting,” says Long. “When you create something, you’re making the world more beautiful in your own little way.” Wigglesworth talks about the way music also teaches you to be in tune to your surroundings. Despite the fact that his emphasis is in voice, Wigglesworth says his ears are often what get the most training. Because of this training he has a sharper perception of the music around him. “I hear things, things that had always been there, but I hadn’t recognized,” smiles Wigglesworth. He used the example of catching an off-key strain of music. Those moments, he says, put a smile on his face. It’s a kind of thrill that the artist gets to experience, a sense of discovery.

14 - In Process

Balzun and Wigglesworth are both encouraged by the accomplishments of others in their field. Composers are continually listening to “masters of the instrument,” or as Balzun puts it, “people who are at the top of the game or at the top of the totem pole.” For Balzun, fellow Canadian and professional composer Alexina Louie is at the height of her game. Having played many of her pieces, he described how meeting Louie face-to-face illuminated why her music was “free of barriers that composers sometimes put on themselves.” Meeting Louie revealed to Balzun that a composer actually solidifies a piece of themselves to share with others through their work. The captured music is really an expression, a mood, a thought, an intangible element of the mind that is caught and caged within the staff.

“I was working all night on it and I worked really hard. My feet were hurting, my legs were crossed, my eyes were hurt-

ing, but it was due.” Despite all of the pain, Long still laughs about it. “It was still really enjoyable.” When mind and motivation become fully engrossed in a task, a person finds a pure joy in the experience. Psychologists have written extensively about this process, which they call “flow.” Flow happens when you are focused on the task and find joy in the working — the untouchable connection to the labor that brings satisfaction. Balzun tells of how, while composing, he paces the floor and sings to himself as ideas get thrown around in his head. “Doing something physically or kinetically just helps me draw out creativity somehow,” he says. These moments that artists spend alone — pacing the floors to capture the perfect phrasing of music or scratching away at a likeness of themselves — these are the moments that truly matter. “Every time you have a piece premiered, it is a fitting end to the journey,” Balzun says. This is the very essence of enjoying self-discipline: not regarding the applause or the enthralled faces as the reasons for the endeavor, but rather as the perfect closing to it.

This is why discipline will always remain a paramount virtue: it connects what could be with what actually is.

“Anytime you hear a piece played by someone,” Balzun says, “you just have to muse over the fact that a while ago, the piece didn’t even exist.” Wigglesworth notes the remarkable process of sight-reading, where the inky notes become strains of music with no instrument but the eyes to play them. At Biola, Wigglesworth often finds himself surrounded by music majors who are excellent sight-readers, though he himself still struggles because of the little classical training he had in that area. “It can be the most discouraging thing because you’re surrounded by people that are so good” he says. Yet, like Balzun,

JOEL BALZUN

by Zachary Fu / photos by Jordan Nakamura

n the fourth quarter of a riveting basketball game, the home team’s head coach paces up and down the sideline. A player on the bench, still in his warm-ups, sits in silence amidst the crowd’s deafening cheers. He tries to hide his frustration, but is unable to camouflage his deep and evident desire to contribute to the game. Any individual in the stands would be quick to label this player a “bench warmer,” or sometimes even just “the bench.” This collegiate player, however, is both the embodiment of hard work in grueling practices, and in many cases, a former high school star — details often overlooked when it’s down to the buzzer and all eyes are on the starting point guard taking the final shot. Many players find themselves in this position — accepting the crowd’s applause after a victory without having broken a sweat in the last four quarters — yet only a select few have the character to respond with perseverance and positivity. Every one of them shares something deeper that drives them to push through hard circumstances: a dedication that goes beyond the love of the game. Without such dedication, no team would have a bench — and the bench is vital to any team’s success. Without this player, the one still in his warm-ups, the team lacks the chemistry it needs to succeed.

Repositioned STORIES FROM THE SIDE

Senior point guard Elliot Tan is that player. As a senior in high school, the basketball court was his kingdom. He was captain of the Morrison High School basketball team in Taiwan, and led them to their league’s championship game. He also earned impressive individual accolades — including breaking the 1,000-point career scoring mark for his school and recording outstanding statistics with 25 points, six assists, nine rebounds, and three steals per game during that year. When he entered Biola in 2007, however, his role changed entirely. He went from being the player for whom the coach designates the game-winning shot to the player peering over the shoulders of his teammates in the huddle. Tan worked hard and pushed himself in practices for two years, but still did not receive significant amounts of playing time. Many athletes who feel that they deserve more playing time simply transfer to different schools where they can be the stars of the team. Tan chose to stick it out — even if it meant fighting through the hardships of intense practices only to occupy the bench during games.

her freshman season — the second game of her entire collegiate career — she suffered a tear in her right ACL. Ironically, she’d also torn her left ACL during her freshman year in high school. Like McMahan, Mendoza went through the same scenario twice. Since Mendoza received her second injury during her first year in college, instead of her last, she dealt with the psychological aspects at a much younger age than McMahan.

ELLIOT TAN

Although Tan doesn’t always contribute on the court during the games, he does all that he can to help the team perform. “I just want my team to win,” he says. “A lot of it is working hard in practice, trying to do what I can to make the starters play better.” Many people fail to realize that it is the bench players who scrimmage against the star players at practice. Without facing a challenge in these players, the starters would find it much harder to improve. Still, many question why a player would remain on a team without a place in the spotlight. “What drove me to stay on the team was just having the possibility to work hard and have the opportunity to play,” Tan says, adding that he has enjoyed being around his teammates and coaches every year. Simply having his name on the roster and the chance to earn any playing time at all, he says, is a chance many would love to have. “Sometimes when you’re in there at practice running lines, you forget that it’s a blessing to do that,” says Tan. Other bench players include those who have proven themselves to be star collegiate athletes, but have been banished to the sidelines because of serious injuries. These players find themselves feeling totally helpless while they support their teams from off the field. As they watch from the sidelines, they itch to be released from the bondage of their crutches or arm slings. Former Biola lacrosse player Jonathan McMahan tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) in his right knee during his freshman season, and then the ACL in his left knee the night before his junior season began. The rehabilitation process for torn ACLs differs in each case, but generally requires surgery, physical therapy, and around 12 months to fully heal. For an athlete at the collegiate level, this means a quarter of your career down the drain.

18 - Repositioned

ALLEXA MENDOZA

JONATHAN MCMAHAN

McMahan’s first injury occurred during the championship game of his freshman year. While racing toward the goal, he leaned his body into his defender and took an awkward step with his right leg. The pain struck his body, eliciting his own screams as the lower half of his leg dug into the turf and the top half twisted over it. Even the goalie on the other side of the field heard the tear. “You could hear the popping and cracking of everything in there tearing and it just gave out and I went down,” McMahan recalls. He underwent surgery for his knee in summer 2008, and the doctors prescribed him six months of physical therapy and six more months of avoiding contact sports, preventing McMahan from playing in his sophomore season. He seemed to be recovering just fine — returning to practice and getting voted team captain — until the second injury. McMahan tore his other ACL during a night practice before the team’s first season game. After a year of rigorous physical therapy and counting the days until he could play again, he was back to square one.

“My confidence level went down a lot,” she says. Prior to the injury, Mendoza was reaping the benefits of her hard work during pre-season, and her collegiate career was going better than she had expected. When she came to Biola, she had decided that she would be satisfied with even five minutes of playing time. She averaged twenty-two minutes of playing time in the few pre-season games she played before the injury; when her knee went out of commission, the average quickly dropped to zero. Like McMahan, Mendoza had surgery, and longed to support her team from the field as she watched from the bench. “It was frustrating because I’d want to be in there … it was hard not being able to contribute,” she says. Instead of dwelling on her circumstances, however, Mendoza used her

time to learn more about the game so that when she returns to the field next season, she will be better equipped to serve her team. She doesn’t just cheer from the bench, but also hones her attention to the play going on in front of her. She notices every pass, every run — the way the players move on and off the ball. Many athletes, if not all of them, fear the public criticism and personal feelings of failure that are associated with anyone not listed in the starting lineup. Often, when athletes who are used to playing significant minutes face injury, they become apathetic and lose their passion for the game. Uninjured players who sit the bench can easily become jealous or embittered, putting up psychological barriers between themselves and the team. When either of these happens, the players’ attitude brings the team down and becomes a hindrance — the team loses not only a good player, but also a general spirit of confidence. In the midst of all these challenges, Tan, McMahan, and Mendoza have all worked to turn their mindsets away from themselves, and made efforts to restructure the way they contribute to their teams. Of course they desire to play, but they’ve all experienced the undeniable value of playing a different position — the one on the sideline.

“I got overwhelmed,” says McMahan. McMahan struggled psychologically this time, battling depression for several weeks. For athletes, the real place of victory and defeat is often more in the mind than on the field. Psychological barriers can prove devastating to even the greatest player’s ability to perform. McMahan played a reserve role for the team in three games during that season and coached as much as he could. It was the best he could do, but it was not enough to satisfy his hunger to play. “I hated it,” McMahan says. “It’s hard to go from leader on the field to trying to coach and lead off the field. Things can change so fast and you’re not even expecting it.” Like McMahan, freshman soccer player Allexa Mendoza also understands getting stuck on the sideline by injury. In

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here, especially because we didn’t know any English.” Joao points out that people are more likely to get to know the brothers because people are curious about Brazil. In the Toscan’s case, coming from a different culture has led them to meet more people than they would have met otherwise. Joao also describes the support and friendship he has received from students and faculty at Biola: “Here you can talk about any topic you’re struggling with, and someone will try to help you out. People will do their best and there’s no one here who’s a jerk.” After they graduate, the Toscans hope to stay in the United States to play professional soccer, or they could return to Brazil and help with the family transportation business.

by Stephanie Gertsch / photos by Jennifer Trahan

ransitioning to college means facing the unknown— leaving behind your home and childhood friends, learning to live in a new world, and wondering, “Who are these hoards of twenty-year-olds in flip flops?” Whether moving just a few hours away or across an entire country, transitions make life more exciting, but also more difficult.

“Coming here was like being born again, because we had to start from the beginning — [it was] like being 17 years old and reading kids’ books,” says Humberto Toscan, Joao’s older brother. Writing a two-page essay, something most students do with hardly a thought, could take the Toscans three hours.

American-born college students wonder if there are any points of contact between themselves and an international student, or if they should respect cultural differences by holding off on cultural assumptions. Newcomers wonder if America is a safe place to learn and grow, or if they must constantly struggle against prejudice and misunderstanding. As college campuses nationwide strive to include a more multicultural student body, these students meet one another in classrooms and cafeterias, churches and coffee shops. Their interactions create a third space where international students and American nationals alike step further out of their normative cultural mindsets and closer towards one another’s. In a land where, over forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream that these students would “walk together as sisters and brothers,” these little steps go a long way.

Joao came to Biola on a soccer scholarship in fall 2009, after Humberto had already transferred from a school in Michigan. Humberto originally visited Michigan as an exchange student in high school, finding the weather there much too cold — during his first blizzard, he discovered that a hoodie did not qualify as “warm clothes.” He came to Biola on a soccer scholarship, and now runs the school’s intramural sports organization.

Humberto and Joao Toscan “Language was the hardest challenge,” Joao Toscan says of the problems he and his brother faced in coming to an American college after growing up in Brazil.

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Like many seniors, Humberto is still not sure where God’s plan will lead him. “We’re both gifted with the skills we have,” he says of himself and his brother. “We have what we need to make it at the professional level, but we don’t know if that’s God’s calling for us. No matter how much I want to play, if it’s not God’s calling we shouldn’t be doing it. It’s not like God’s going to come and say ‘I don’t want you to do this.’ It’s a process.” Abby Chua While the Toscans’ lack of English skills immediately marked them as foreigners, Abby Chua’s perfect English allows her to blend in with the other Asian-American students at Biola. Unlike most of those Asian-American students, however, Abby grew up in Taiwan, and this is her first time in the United States.

American culture was different from Chua’s expectations. “I expected the people here to be way more confident than any group of people I’ve been around,” she says. “Really confident and bold and outgoing, every single person.” She also expected Americans to be laid-back in their attitudes toward school, and to eat fast food every day. She was surprised to see that students were serious about their classes, and that the cafeteria had healthy options. Culture shock was not the biggest issue for Chua, who had already been exposed to different cultures through going to an English-speaking school and traveling around Asia with her family. Instead, the hardest part of her first semester was dealing with being away from her family for the first time. Homesickness is an experience most college students can relate to. Chua’s message for other international students is not to make the same mistakes she did in dealing with this displacement. To feel less alone, Chua filled up all her free time with activities with her friends. Outwardly, this looks like an international student successfully “assimilating” into American culture. “I said yes to anything, anyone, anywhere, anytime,” Chua recalls; “I had a lot of fun doing that; my way of living somewhat mitigated the pain I had from homesickness, but it didn’t heal me the way God heals and it destroyed my health.” Chua has a PSVT — or paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia — which makes her heart palpitate. Normally, PSVT would not limit her goals, but the stress and lack of sleep made her heart palpitations worse.

The brothers came with negative expectations about American culture. Joao admits he expected Americans to be unfriendly to outsiders: “I was expecting people not to talk to me because I’m international, that they would not show their feelings. We heard in Brazil that Americans and Europeans were not as open as we were.” Instead, the Toscans found people acted friendlier because of their cultural difference. Humberto cannot remember any encounter where people were rude to him because he came from Brazil. Instead, he says, “Everyone is really nice and asks questions. They think we’re really bold to come

For Months, Chua ignored nagging doubts about her dependence on others for happiness. Eventually she asked God point-blank to show her why her lifestyle was bad. The next day she realized she was wasting opportunities he had given her — not taking care of her health or making the best of her international experience. She started getting eight hours of sleep a night and saying no when her friends want to stay out late. “If I continued living the way I did first semester,” Chua says, “I could literally die early. So in the long run I’m not missing out when I live the way God wants me to live.” Rebeca Aulie Rebeca Aulie calls herself a “hidden immigrant.” Like Chua, she blends in with American culture. But even though Aulie looks Caucasian, she grew up with her missionary parents and four siblings in Mexico City, and consequently identifies herself as Hispanic. Aulie says traveling and experiencing different cultures created strong ties among her family members —many of whom have their own stories of experiences with diversity. Her sister was adopted from a Mayan village, her older brother teaches at a school in Kurdistan, and another sister is married to an Ethiopian she met in Cuba. Aulie says her freshman fall was probably easier than most students because she was used to adjusting to different environments. Some things still troubled her, however. Her family warned her about individualism and obsession with image in Los Angeles. Aulie also encountered differences in gender roles in America. For instance, she was used to men opening doors for women, pulling out chairs, and being quick to help. “When I neither received nor observed these basic manners,” she says, “I became discouraged, disappointed and occasionally shocked.” In addition, American church services were hard to adjust to, since Aulie missed the

salsa rhythms and the people dancing in the aisles. Though Aulie was used to transitioning between cultures, living in America still felt like a new arena. Originally, Aulie did not want to come to a Christian university. She preferred the idea of being a “light in the darkness,” and was put off by the mediocrity in Christian schools. Her experience of Biola has shown her a school with many underlying issues. “At Biola,” she says, “you see a split campus between those that really seek God out, and the ones who merely hold the name.” As it turns out, Biola is also a place in need of light. Aulie says the faithful people she has met during college have greatly encouraged her, as “amidst the division of true faith on Biola’s campus, there are so many students who are vibrant for knowing who God is and how to glorify Him with their lives.”

Dreams change. Where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once talked about black and white children joining hands to sing, we now talk about concepts such as “cultural displacement” and “invisible immigrants.” The notion of different cultures living in unity still makes up a significant ideal in the American dream. The picture is less black and white now, expanding to include a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints. The college campus creates a uniquely intimate setting for their backgrounds to mix together.

For Aulie, the greatest struggle of living in a different culture was, and still is, being misunderstood. Since her looks let her blend in with the majority, but her cultural background and mindset cause her to stand out, she often finds herself in situations where people mistake her identity and misjudge her. She describes how people will assume she has the same cultural prejudices. “Many people will say Mexican jokes having no idea that I am Mexican, and some of the comments really hurt. Or, if they do know, they will say ‘No, you are different,’ which to me undermines the intense patriotism I feel for my country, because that comment separates and makes me superior from my people, when I want to be known with them. Mexico is who I am.” When she is in Mexico, however, she does not fit in either — because she looks different. Both of these experiences have given her hard-won knowledge about herself and the inadequacies of cultural labels.

“...the greatest struggle of living in a different culture was, and still is, being misunderstood.”

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Aulie still gets frustrated when people approach her with ignorant attitudes. According to Aulie, everyone is still living in ignorance. Her response has been to stand up to this ignorance in a way that includes grace — which she hopes will help others find way to learn from each other and gain understanding that will make these transitions easier for everyone.

In a four-year university, students experience “culture shock” even with students of their own nationality — roommate conflicts, unusual comments in class, new systems like the library or online housing. The college campus levels the playing field for cross-cultural experiences, since it forces every student to have one. While international students face many of the same problems as other students when going away to college — displacement, homesickness, loneliness, and misunderstanding — they also value their experience as a unique part of their identity and personal growth. What makes these experiences unique are the details that students like the Toscan brothers, Abby, and Rebeca bring in their stories. A multicultural campus involves more than just students of different cultures learning side by side — it is a chance for people going through the strange, shared experience of college to turn and meet each other, and redefine themselves by seeing through another’s eyes.

Dealing With the Disconnect by Kelsey Osterman

“T

hat smile is going to get you married!” the African American man exclaimed as I walked by him on the sidewalk. I laughed and thanked him. He was not the only black man to greet me as I made my way through the group of homeless people gathered in front of the shelter. By the midpoint of my semester, I started getting used to this treatment. I was a blonde-haired white girl living in Washington D.C., — a rarity that received a lot of attention. At times, riding the Metrorail or the bus, I will find myself the only Caucasian person in sight. The first time this happened, I was startled. A native Minnesotan, I had never been a racial minority before, and the realization caught me entirely off-guard. Such situations no longer surprise me, but I admit that they still unnerve me on some level. When I first set foot in D.C., I felt like I had walked into another country, and not just because of the changes in skin tones. What was this beautiful world of brick sidewalks, row houses, government buildings and men in suits? And how did it fit with the blatant homelessness I encountered on almost every corner? Almost 12,000 people in the District were counted as homeless in 2010, according to

the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Many of these also struggle with health problems, language barriers, substance abuse or domestic violence. How can such hardship be present at the very core of our country, in our nation’s thriving capital? The divide remains confusing, frustrating and unclear, yet indisputable. It plays a vital role in the daily rush, bustle and scurry of Washington D.C. The elegant businesswoman hails a passing cab, Starbucks in hand; the homeless woman on the corner hails passers-by, a coin-filled cup in her hand. The suited politician smokes a cigarette as he pounds the pavement between appointments; the drifter smokes a cigarette butt he found on the pavement between trashcans. Every evening, when the mad rush of D.C. life slows down, I take refuge on the roof of our apartment structure. The rotunda of the U.S. Capitol gleams against the inky backdrop of nighttime sky. The tip of the Washington Monument is just visible, peeking over the Hart Senate Office Building with its blinking red eyes. The city is calm, even more so from four stories up. For a few hours, D.C. sleeps and forgets the divide.

America Dreaming REDEFINING SUCCESS

by Adrienne Nunley / photos by Bethany Cissel

avid Ottestad attended Biola in the fall semester of 2008 before he realized that the American Dream wasn’t for him. When the time came to make post-high school plans, Ottestad had no idea what he wanted to do. His parents encouraged him to pursue the four-year college experience, believing, like many American families, in the ability of a bachelor’s degree to ensure some sort of future security. Ottestad wasn’t interested, but he eventually decided on Biola after getting accepted into the film program. In his first semester, Ottestad realized his true passion wasn’t for film, but for music.

Although Ottestad now feels more free, working in the music industry presents various challenges of its own. “I wake up every day knowing I’m pursuing a dream, or an industry, that is completely broken,” Ottestad says. “I’ve always heard that the industry is really dark; there is no God.” Ottestad stresses the amount of manipulation that takes place in the music industry. A band will befriend another in order to tour with them and build up their own name. David realizes that the best way to avoid becoming consumed by such ambitions and to find real success is by not focusing on labels, managers, and producers. To combat this consumption, The Wandering Tree purposefully spends time meeting people and getting to know them. They learn names and listen to problems.

“Instead of studying,” Ottestad says, “I was writing music in every class.” He began reconsidering his original major, but worried about turning music — something he loved — into an assignment or an obligation.

“Once you put more focus on making those relationships, it’s a more genuine and joyous experience,” Ottestad says

In this same semester, however, Ottestad also realized that Biola wasn’t the best place for him to pursue this passion. He withdrew from Biola and started his band, The Workday Release, now known as The Wandering Tree.

While Ottestad enjoyed his time in the music industry, his parents continued to be wary. “Don’t you want to meet people in college?” David’s mother asked him after he left Biola. David feels that being in the band is his social experience. When the band goes back to a city where they’ve previously played, it excites him to see the people he met there.

“I think for a lot of people, college is a great place to be,” Ottestad clarifies. “It’s a good place to define yourself and figure out what God has called you to do, but that wasn’t what it was like for me.”

“I wouldn’t know these people or have these relationships if I hadn’t pursued this dream,” he says. It’s not monetary

What happens if someone doesn’t want a six-digit income or a white picket fence? What happens if what a person dreams doesn’t look the same way this dream does? What happens if life doesn’t go exactly as planned?

DAVID OTTESTAD (SECOND FROM RIGHT), THE WANDERING TREE

gains that determine their succes, but rather the growth of their fan base, the relationships they get to make, and the lives they get to influence. “I don’t think the Bible really talks about success the way we’ve defined it,” Ottestad says. He feels that in America, success is commonly defined by money and academic standing. But for Ottestad, real success has nothing to do with money, and nothing to do with one’s self. Ottestad tries to align his vision of success with the Bible’s. “Anytime I consider myself successful,” Ottestad says, “is when I genuinely stop thinking about what brings me glory, and instead, what brings God glory.” He feels that in order to accomplish this, Americans need to stop thinking about money and personal reputations — contrary to the norm for most on the track to fame and fortune. They need to let go of part of “the dream.”

embodies the way this country defines success. Aaron Kleist, department of English chair of humanities at Biola, sums up the dream as “a house with a white picket fence.”

“Although the door to Biola closed,” Krake says, “another one opened.” The internship may not have been a part of her plans, but she thoroughly enjoys working with the junior high students.

life. I’m going into the music and fashion industry, doing hair and what not. People pay money for these things. I don’t want it to be about that, to be about the money. I want it to be about the relationships that I’m going to make.”

“I love student ministries,” Krake says. “I’ve always wanted to work with young people, but [the internship] wasn’t the way I saw God using that [desire]. I’m learning so much about myself, and ministry, and ways to do ministry, just using the gifts that God has given me and being social.”

Krake says she doesn’t like the word “success” because it looks different for every person. For her, a successful day is one where, at the end of it, she can look back and say, “I did well, and God is good.” She considers her life a success if she’s doing something she enjoys and loves the people she’s around.

Along with interning, Krake currently attends Golden West College in Huntington Beach. Next year, she plans to take a year off from college to attend a cosmetology school. She hopes to eventually get a degree in business with an emphasis in marketing. Cheryl says that most people in the cosmetology industry use it as a back-up plan when their dreams don’t happen, but this is actually something she would enjoy doing for the rest of her life. “People always define success as how much money you make,” Krake says. “I’ve always wanted the nicer things in

Krake enjoys working with her students and feels that part of her success comes from getting to actively love people all the time. Krake currently lives in an apartment complex where the majority of the residents are over 65 years old, and she really enjoys interacting with them. “Every day, I realize that God has me where I’m at to bless the people around me,” she says, noting the importance of her interactions while doing small things like parking the car, checking the mail, and shopping for groceries.

What happens if someone doesn’t want a six-digit income or a white picket fence? What happens if what a person dreams doesn’t look the same way that this dream does? What happens if life doesn’t go exactly as planned? Cheryl Krake was, like Ottestad, a student whose time at Biola was cut short. While Ottestad couldn’t wait to leave campus, Krake dreamed of having the four-year experience at Biola. She got accepted, enrolled, and was a student at Biola from Fall 2009 through Spring 2010. At the end of the summer 2010, however, Krake realized she wouldn’t be able to return to Biola due to financial limitations.

People like to dream — of happiness, of love, of success. Everyone’s dream looks a little different, yet a certain phrase has been used over the years and throughout the nation to describe them all: the American Dream.

“I was in a mix of emotions,” Krake says. “It was a very… depressed time of, ‘Okay, my dreams are falling. God, what are you trying to teach me now? What are you trying to do with that?’”

This dream often includes spending four years at an esteemed university, getting married and raising the ideal family, owning a home, earning an annual six-digit income, and then retiring to the Bahamas. The American Dream

Around that time, Krake received an internship at a church in Long Beach working with junior high students. Her family encouraged her to stick to that commitment even though she could not continue at Biola. CHERYL KRAKE

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ANN MARIE CORTEZ

“Say I am successful in all that I set out to do, and all my to-do lists I have ticked off, and at the end of my life, I look back and I have achieved success as this world would define it... Ultimately, that is very small to a Sovereign God”

“I love that my story is different,” she says. “I don’t like being like everyone else. I don’t like my life being defined by a dream, as some people would say. I like to shock people.”

Cortez says the circumstances surrounding her decision were hard because she was focused on what she could do to attain success, as opposed to where God might be directing her skills and talents.

While Krake wasn’t afraid to defy common expectations, Ann Marie Cortez, a sophomore commnication studies major in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola, struggled with her decision to come to Biola. During her college search, her goal was to attend an Ivy League school, like Harvard or Yale, and then continue on to a law school. All her actions and decisions during high school were dedicated to this goal — she had the grades and accomplishments needed to make Harvard or Yale a reality.

“I was looking at success in the future versus success in the now,” Cortez says. “My only goal should be to be where God wants me in the moment, not to be somewhere where I want to be twenty years from now.”

“To everybody on the outside, it was a story wasted,” Cortez remembers. She recalls others saying things about her like: “She had so much potential and she went to Biola, of all places.” Cortez says she was constantly looked down on because of her decision.

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Although Cortez does have goals of attending a renowned law school — such as Stanford Law or Pepperdine Law — and becoming a judge, she says that today she doesn’t define success in worldly terms. Instead, she suggests that it has more to do with serving God with her gifts and talents in every moment. Success, she says, doesn’t come down to who she becomes in regards to a career, but who she is as an individual. She feels she should not be motivated by money, position, or power. She asks herself, “Am I striving to be as Christ-like as I can be?”

PROFESSOR KLEIST

God guided her to Biola, but Cortez was shaken by what came next. Two weeks into her freshman year at Biola, she received some distressing news: one of her closest friends from home had passed away. The news of death never comes at a good time, and the shock hit Ann out of the comfort of home, overwhelming her with grief and pain. Cortez says it was incredibly difficult at the time, because she didn’t know anyone at Biola and she felt alone. She says that God used the circumstances to focus her reliance on him and the strangers he had put into her life at the time. “It was a kick-start to my community life. I started friendships when I was in this very vulnerable state,” she says. At first, she did not want to tell anyone what had happened, but she eventually poured everything out in one of her classes. She says the people God had placed around her prayed for her and comforted her during this difficult time. “[This experience] forced me to be vulnerable with people and to open up to them and to lean on them, which is something that I’m not used to,” says Cortez, acknowledging her independence. Through all of this, her mindset about college has changed. “[College] is not so much a way to reach an end, as it is a

home and a community,” says Cortez. “This is where I need to be and this is where I fit in.”

Aaron Kleist was able to attend an Ivy League school, but that didn’t keep him from wrestling with different ideas of success. One might say that his life coincides nicely with the American Dream: he holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in England, has accumulated countless awards and honors, contributed to many publications, and has a loving family. He has had an adventurous life, having been raised in Saipan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Despite all this, Kleist feels success should be defined by much more than earthly accomplishments. “Say I am successful in all that I set out to do, and all my to-do lists I have ticked off, and at the end of my life, I look back and I have achieved success as this world would define it—whether that’s money or power or pleasure or respect, a name that lasts for some period of time, perhaps after my death, [or] it’s written in books,” Kleist says. “Ultimately, that is very small to a Sovereign God… for whom earth is a very small thing. He loves us, he cares about us, he values us, he knows us. But for him to stoop down to make us truly great by giving us a place in a story... that’s an astonishing and far larger measure of success.”

Kleist understands the personal longing to have our actions matter and be remembered. “In the Lord’s economy, there is the possibility of success that lasts—and that is large and real and true,” Kleist says. “I’m only going to get it if I’m willing to give up my own definition of what success looks like and accept his.” Kleist has been in places — the halls of the greatest universities and conferences with some of the world’s greatest leaders — in which he was humbled by the number of “legitimate geniuses” he was working with. He has participated in lectures at the Second Annual Symposium on the Alfredian Boethius Project at Oxford University, and the Medieval Institute at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. These experiences humbled him as he came to recognize his own areas of strength as well as his own areas of ineptness. “[God] is able to use those small areas [of strength], and even the larger ones of ineptness, to do great things for his kingdom,” Kleist says. “He uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong... so that in the end, it’s obvious that if anything’s happened, it’s happened through him.” Yet, most people still worry. So many, if not all, seem to wonder what they are meant to do and where they should go in the world. Even after taking a new perspective on success, it’s still easy to feel inadequate at figuring out the right path. Out of nowhere, things can drastically change — unplanned, unexpected things. Kleist admits the difficulties in making the right decisions, especially when it comes to making significant and deliberate transitions: signing a loan statement, accepting a job offer, stepping down from a current position. “It’s painful! It’s extraordinarily painful.” In a culture of gogo-go and do-do-do, taking time to really consider how a certain opportunity will affect our lives can drive us crazy with impatience and anxiety. Kleist says that often times we

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will pray for God to lead us in a particular direction, and the response we get is silence. In spite of frustration, he sees a pattern of himself being more drawn to God through these experiences. “The Lord uses the waiting for good in the end,” he says. Kleist notes that much personal strength and character gets built not by finally making such decisions, but rather through all the time of consideration and deliberation that leads up to them. “The waiting, the striving towards him, the seeking of the Lord, that’s a privilege and a gift and has a beauty in and of itself.”

The problem with the “white picket fence” of the American Dream is that it doesn’t let in the pain and the problems — the unexpected trials that get in the way of our plans, the financial burdens that limit our options, the hidden passions we have that don’t match up with surrounding expectations, the gaps between the ideal and the real that haunt and hinder everyone in the nation. Fortunately, this cookie-cutter version of success isn’t the only version of success. More fortunately, the other versions of success not only allow for, but often — if not always — include the surprises and struggles involved in finding our place and purpose in the world. It can get hard when it seems like everyone around us seeems to be accomplishing all their goals while we’re just stuck in the same old story of trial-and-error. Even when we are able to take our eyes off the American Dream, the social pressures of a powerful and productive society can leave us feeling as if we’re getting left behind. The real American dream is that everyone has a different story to tell, so we shouldn’t let the picket fences keep us pent up in paralysis. True success comes in figuring out what each of our stories looks like, a process that often involves the kind of waiting that Kleist speaks of. We will never be satisfied if we chase a dream that’s not our own, so the wait — however uncomfortable — is worth it.

Dr. Barry H. Corey by Sarah Jean

“S

o what have you done with your life?” Today, with a Fulbright scholarship, a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. over 5,000 friends on Facebook, and even his own Wikipedia page, few would think it hard for Biola University President Barry Corey, Ph.D. to answer this question. If you’d had asked him fifteen years ago, though, he wouldn’t have been so sure. Five years out of college, at the age of twenty-seven, Corey went through what he calls a “crisis of normality.” “We were just a middle class family, everyone was a Christian, we all loved Jesus, we all loved each other.” Corey says his “security crutches” were never kicked out from under him. The cure to his normality crisis? Bangladesh. The Fulbright scholarship paid for his trip to the small country bordered by India and Burma. He lived there for a year doing research and working with children in schools. Other graduate students were going to other countries too, but mostly to pursue international careers — not to live among the poor. “It gave me perspective,” said Corey “I remember walking out of my apartment this one time, and right in the middle of the road was a guy who had no arms no legs and just kind of held a tin bowl in his mouth.” The man was able to

maneuver his body down the street by rolling and with each turn he would catch the bowl upright to keep the coins from scattering on the ground. “I walked the other way,” Corey says. “I didn’t want to walk towards him.” Corey’s repulsion in this encounter stemmed from feeling out of control, a feeling he now realizes everyone does — and must — experience. “You want to have children and you can’t, you want to get married and you don’t, and you want to save to buy a house and you get laid off. Whenever we’re trying to measure our success by those certain things, the stuff that we can touch, invariably there’s going to be great disappointment, because so much of that we have so little control over.” Whether a personal or communal disappointment — discomfort from losing a job or discomfort from meeting someone like the man Corey met in Bangladesh — the answer isn’t to freeze and turn in the other direction. Corey suggests instead aiming for something other than certainty. “If you live your life for confidence, confidence is different than certainty. Confidence comes from the Latin words “con” (‘with’) and “federe” (‘faith’). We have to trust what is going to happen tomorrow because all the certain stuff can disappear. Marriages fall apart, parents get divorced, investments fail, houses burn down, children aren’t born. If we were defining our success by banking on certainty we’re going to be disappointed. Certainty means we know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and we don’t. Confidence means I trust what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

“To have the rare opportunity to express, “I’m wounded!” is just as dignifying and liberating as saying, “I am well!”

by Stephen Hernandez In this portraiture series, I initially set out to capture a completely honest and unhindered expression of the self. In seeking the ever-elusive ego, however, I stumbled upon something profoundly more breathtaking: the dignity and innate liberation afforded by the process of image-making. That is to say: to receive an image offered by another and to return it as it was given is equivalent to sharing one’s vulnerabilities and saying, “Yes, you are worthy!” Where I first sought to create a thought-provoking product by means of whittling the traditional constructs of portraiture all the way down to their most basic form -- the face -- I soon realized that the real charge in this body of work did not lie in the end result, but rather in the tensions of engaging both process-oriented film photography and the perplexing mechanisms surrounding the human condition.

John

Jesenya

Carol

Joanne

Matthew

Lauren

by Alyson Luthi / photos by Kelsey Heng and Job Ang

Little House on the Heights

f you have just turned onto Interstate 101 heading north from Biola and are winding through its maze of concrete walls and climbing ivy, veer off onto the Soto St. exit, and you will find yourself dumped into the neighborhood that is Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The residents of Boyle Heights hasten to correct any misconceptions that their community is an inclusion of L.A.’s East Side and the stigmas that accompany it. Their identity is unique — a hodgepodge of ethnicities that have mingled into a neighborhood mosaic within their shared vicinity. “There are a lot of subcultures within L.A., and while there are many individual identities within Boyle Heights, it also has its own collective identity,” says resident Alicia Miller. In June of last year, Alicia moved in to the “Hollenbeck House,” a newly established communal house in the Hollenbeck sector of Boyle Heights. During her last year as a nursing student at Biola University, Miller became involved in Multi-Ethnic Programs on campus, and began the process of discovering her ethnic identity as a white woman. Taking ownership of her ethnic identity attracted her towards the idea of personal displacement and integration into a more diverse locale. She had originally wanted to break free of the U.S. and move overseas after graduation, but as her senior year approached, she experienced a growing appreciation for local diversity. “God really confronted me with the fact that it was really easy for me to love people who were far away from me and in a dire situation,” Miller says, “but in reality he had a lot to teach me about loving the people who are next door to me in my neighborhood of L.A.” The Hollenbeck House is the brainchild of owners Larry Smith — an English professor at Biola University, L.A. City College, and Rio Hondo Community College — and his wife Niki, an independent print editor. Larry had been a professor at Biola for seven years prior to moving to Boyle Heights and was already making efforts to immerse students in L.A. history, culture, and communities via his L.A. Literature classes at Biola. The Smiths have lived in multiple regions

of the world —from Washington to Papua New Guinea—and in the spring of 2010, they were ready to make another transition. Larry had led several of Biola’s cross-cultural excursions to the Middle East, and he and Niki had made a point to saturate their everyday ordinary life with Los Angeles culture and people. In addition, they hatched a new idea: invite Biola students to live with them as part of an affordable urban experience. Larry and Niki’s first task was to find a house. It seemed that almost every subsection of L.A. they were interested in specialized only in subdivided houses. One day, in the midst of his housing search, the real estate program Larry had been using to browse houses built between 1900-1930 wasn’t operating. He began using another program to scroll through houses, and soon found the Hollenbeck House, built in 1888. At the time, the house was owned by a couple in their 90s who were looking to relocate. “We made an offer the first day for the full price. We just knew the Lord wanted us to have the house,” says Larry. While they awaited move-in day, the Smiths sold and vacated their home in Highland Park Beach and moved into a motel in Pasadena. They were excited to live closer to the people of Los Angeles and become a part of the organic culture residing there. “It will never be a gentrified, cool, white neighborhood,” Larry remarks of their new home. He comments on the difference between Boyle Heights and downtown L.A.: “All the people moving downtown are 30+ white yuppies who hang out at The Standard and eat at Novel Café and go to art galleries. Boyle Heights is still in the process of change, but it remains a very authentic, working class neighborhood.” He hopes that their neighborhood will only become more diverse and colorful with time. Resident Ashlee Morgan moved into Hollenbeck House last April, along with the Smiths and the first batch of Biola students. A Biola intercultural studies major from Colorado Springs, Ashlee has acclimated to life in Boyle Heights and

“God really confronted me with the fact that it was really easy for me to love people who were far away from me and in a dire situation… but he had a lot to teach me about loving the people who are next door to me.”

Zeigenfuss speaks from her own experience when she advocates for the importance of making the most of education. “I value education because that’s what got me out of foster care and brought me here. I’m not on the streets today because I decided to get good grades in high school so I could go to college and beat the streets.” Taija hopes to continue living and working in L.A. after she completes her degree in sociology and social work next spring.

THE HOLLENBECK HOUSE

her local job at Computers for Youth (CFY), which focuses on interactive computer training within families in order to promote better education for their children. According to Morgan, life in Boyle Heights is not crazy or necessarily challenging — it is just unique. Everyone keeps busy either at their local businesses or elsewhere in L.A., and friendliness is commonplace between friends and strangers. “A lot of us expected when we moved here that the neighbors would be so open and we’d have great relationships with everyone on the street,” Morgan says. “But I think just having to get to know the culture was something new and challenging. Everyone goes in with an expectation, and when that’s not met you have to adjust.” Her work helps her adjust these expectations: “CFY has opened my eyes to a lot because we are going into some of the poorest neighborhoods in L.A …. I went to a middle- to upper-class school when I was a kid, and at CFY we see the differences in the structure and the upkeep of schools and what is accessible to the children through education.” She is

plies to live in the Hollenbeck House. After all, its purpose is to grant students a genuine experience of Los Angeles through interaction with the people and practical service. “The application is what we call a self-eliminating application,” explains Larry. “If you answer honestly, you’re just going to sense whether or not the Lord is calling you here. It’s only been one year, but we’ve learned through trial and error. The students will be committed to community.”

Ashlee echoes the sentiment that holistic living should be a natural part of being in community. “Living and working in Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, specifically in neighborhoods with a lower income, you experience genuine people,” she says. “We had a really good conversation one night about how we can minister to this neighborhood, and we decided it’s not about bringing God into the neighborhood because he has always been here. We are just another component of this community.” “We can often perceive places like L.A. as ‘we have so much to offer them’ and ‘we’re bringing God with us,’ but God is already at work in L.A.,” agrees Miller. “We’ve stepped into something that is already going on. It was really affirming

to step into a community that embraced me and that really focuses on doing life together and loving each other and walking alongside each other.” After graduation, Miller set aside her nursing degree to focus on her position as the Multi-Ethnic Programs Coordinator at Biola. The department works to build community on campus through ethnic identity development and inter-ethnic dialogue, so the job fits perfectly with her daily life in Boyle Heights. “We all want to get involved because we have strengths and ideas that we want to share,” Miller explains, “but we also want to be good listeners and receivers of those around us.” “Nobody’s ever asked ‘What are you doing in this neighborhood? Why do you live here?’” says Smith. “We’re really here to focus on serving in the ways that we can. If that leads to relationships then that’s great. People always think in terms of financial security, safety, and a traditional family life. We don’t necessarily think, ‘I want to raise my kids around MacArthur Park.’ But why wouldn’t you? Elsewhere ,there’s social strata. Boyle Heights has its own issues and problems like anyone, but here if you live in Boyle Heights, you live in Boyle Heights. This is our neighborhood and we stick together.”

Taija Zeigenfuss, a former resident of the Hollenbeck House reflects on her unique experience volunteering last summer at S.A.Y. Yes!, a tutoring program for inner city children. “I was in a foster home before I came to Biola, and I remember my foster mom saying she wanted to drop me off at Skid Row and leave me,” Zeigenfuss says. “I had no idea what Skid Row was before I moved to Boyle Heights and finally saw it.” Her summer opportunity to reach out to kids in her neighborhood through education quickly became her longterm personal goal. “I tried not to focus on the problems I

“This is our neighborhood and we stick together.”

excited to keep seeing the progress of children’s educations through CFY, and although she isn’t sure where she would ultimately like to live, she appreciates the experience that her location has allowed to be integrated into her daily life. Being involved in some sort of tutoring, volunteer work, or an internship is a requirement for each student who ap-

couldn’t fix in their circumstances. I didn’t want the kids to think I was just being nice to them because they’re homeless, don’t want them thinking that S.A.Y. Yes! was only there because we felt sorry for them. I want them to realize that we were there out of love because education matters so much for their futures.”

LARRY SMITH

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“My students don’t necessarily think of themselves as rich because they always know someone who is richer.”

Bigger House on the Coast

by Michelle Hong / photo by Stephen Hernandez

ities whose homes average a million-dollar-plus price tag and more than a quarter of households with an income over $200K? Welcome to modern Orange County, and Dave Keehn’s world. Keehn moved from San Bernandino County to become Associate Professor at Talbot Theological Seminary ten years ago. He transferred his other job, battalion chaplain at Rancho Cucamonga Fire District, to the Orange County Fire Authority. Additionally, Keehn runs the youth ministry at his church in Dana Point. In all of these roles, he constantly works to burst what he calls “the OC bubble.” “My students don’t necessarily think of themselves as rich because they always know someone who is richer,” Keehn says. Someone else always has a newer car, a bigger house, a better ocean view. As youth pastor, Keehn saw the real problem with this mentality: the affluence prevented people from investing in one another. “The OC is a very programmed society where parents will use church or soccer leagues to program their kids. We realized that the thing that they don’t have is significant mentors and healthy adult relationships,” says Keehn. His ministry helps students build cogent and dependable relationships with mentors, hoping to make up for the disconnect they experience with their parents. Keehn also replaced all of the group’s “fun” trips with missional experiences. “Here, the kids live at the beach and travel all the time,” said Keehn. “I realized pretty quickly that they didn’t need me to provide them with opportunities to give them trips. By getting our students very involved in missions, we are trying to show them that their money can’t solve all these problems.” If a student is going to give the church a couple hundred dollars and a week of their time, Keen explains, he’d rather take them on a missions trip so they can use their personal gifts and talents to continue building relationships with others. The missions trips involve things like building relationships with inner-city churches in Hollywood of Chicago, heading to New Orleans to fix damage from Hurricane Katrina, or serving the homeless on the streets of Washington D.C. “While these are places they would have gone to for vacation, we take them to places [in these cities] they are not going to

see otherwise,” Keehn said. Instead of swimming in pools at four- or five-star hotels and taking sight-seeing tours, the kids visit shelters and soup kitchens. In getting the students ready for these trips, Keehn and his wife realized one of the OC’s major downfalls: the reluctance of its people to admit their need. Outside the selling of Girl Scout cookies, Keehn notes the community’s hesitancy to fundraise and accept aid. “When we do missions trips, parents don’t want their kids to send out support letters. It’s either they pay out of their own pockets or the kids don’t go.” As a result of the recession, especially, much of the residents’ money got tied up in real estate or stocks — or even evaporated completely, causing panic in a community that prioritizes wealth. In the worst moments of the recent economic circumstances, Keehn observes, OC residents were most unwilling to receive help. “Our church is willing to give the kids scholarships,” he explains, “but we have the parents saying that they don’t take scholarships.” The self-sufficienct mentality extends to the county’s school district. “Back in the Inland Empire, we had good relationships with the schools because they knew they didn’t have all the resources they needed and that we were able to provide a portion,” Keehn says. “When I tried to do the same thing with schools in the OC, they just turned me down saying they had everything that they needed.” The Keehns both work to bridge the gaps between harsh stereotypes from many angles — between Christians and non-Christians, between the “rich” and the less-so, between person and person. In a society where the focus lies in what you look like and what you have, finding the balance as an employee, a pastor, and a father can be trying. “It’s a struggle as a dad to live in the OC,” Keehn says. “One of the things we negotiated was a salary that was going to have a lifestyle not of affluence, but one that didn’t make my kids feel like they were the poorest kid in the room.” Few have the opportunity to live as most in the Orange County do, but even fewer have the opportunity to be so intentional about their income. Every county, though, could use a few people — like the Keehns — who could be so intentional whatever the income.

Echoes of Eden

by Claire Callway / photos by Sarah Snyder

nglish budgies, lineolated parakeets, cockatiels, and canaries populate and color Peggy Burke’s life. Cacophonous chirping and the sound of fluttering wings fill her home so much that we can hear it from the outside. Within seconds of walking in the door, a large, regal green Macaw named Tiki had already found a perch on my photographer’s head. In addition to Tiki, several other birds flitted around the main room, chirping happily and playfully at each other. Burke gladly showed us around her rooms filled with cages containing around one hundred birds of all breeds, sizes and colors. She allowed us to hold a few as she spouted off-the-cuff facts about each of them — where they’d come from, their personalities, and tendencies. After we had been through all of the rooms of her aviary, we sat down to talk to Peggy Burke about herself and her family of birds.

as an artist on the mission field in North Africa. When her time overseas ended, Burke returned to California and became an English language professor at Biola. In the midst of two big life challenges — her transitions back to the United States and a divorce — Burke bought a little parrot named Tiki to keep her company. He instantly reignited her love for birds.

Burke first started keeping birds as a ten-year-old. One day, out of curiosity, she put the birds in a nesting box, and they made chicks. “I was ruined,” she says. “It was absolutely the most marvelous wondrous thing in the world. You crack an egg open, and it’s full of clear, liquidy stuff with a yellow blob in the middle. And then twenty-one days later it’s a perfectly formed little bird. It’s just magic for me.”

Burke treats her birds like family, and the birds treat her like family as well. “They’re just so affectionate, so sweet,” she says. “I just walk into the room and feel loved.” Her best friend, Tiki, constantly hangs closely around her, in her hair or on her shoulders. As she sat with us, she lavished him with kisses, which he returned obligingly.

Burke had fallen in love with seeing the formation of life through the birds; however, many years went by before she had the chance to keep them again. She spent several years

40 - Echoes of Eden

“He seemed lonely,” she says of Tiki, “so I got a canary to keep him company. Then, I got another canary to keep that canary company.” Looking around the room filled with cages, she smiles. “One thing leads to another…” Today, Burke keeps the birds to breed them for sale. Burke appears to be completely in her element when discussing and taking care of her birds. She even started a bird supply business, called Peggy’s Feathered Friends.

Burke is convinced that birds have just as strong a need for family as humans do. “I believe very strongly that birds should have others of their same species. It is very important for their health,” she says. “They’re okay because they have each other. There’s something to the saying ‘birds of a feather flock together.’”

This philosophy has greatly influenced her method of breeding. “If you really take care when raising them, people know the difference between this and going to Petsmart and getting some poor creature that has been living behind a glass case with very little contact.” Raising birds means more than just feeding and caring; for Burke, it has beome a method of personal growth. The pleasure and pain brought by Burke’s passion for these feathered friends has changed the way she sees God. By viewing the beauty and intricacy of life through her birds, Burke has gained a deeper understanding of God and his role as Creator. “I’m constantly amazed at God’s provision. How he sustains his creation is extraordinary. And on top of that, he has made it so incredibly beautiful. I feel like [raising birds] helps me to praise him,” she says. “It’s an echo of Eden, because we left the garden and have always wanted to go back.” Burke’s love of birds has also brought a greater community of human friends. Since her experience in breeding is relatively limited, Burke receives mentoring from a fellow breeder in Arizona. This mentor has taught Burke how to properly feed and care for the birds, and provided her with quality birds for breeding. Burke also has neighbors who are fellow bird-lovers. “We often share meals together,” she says of her bird-loving community.

Even though breeding the birds brings her such joy, doing so sometimes brings her just as much pain. Learning how to properly care for birds is a long process that inevitably involves loss. Because of how small and delicate the young birds are, Burke can accidentally choke chicks when she is feeding them. Last year, she lost about 75 percent of the canaries and at least half of the Lineloted Parakeets because she didn’t know how to properly care for them. “There’s a definite learning curve,” she says. “With every one that I lose, a little piece of me dies.” However beautiful the formation of life, however great the awe Burke experiences at seeing tiny beaks poke through shells for the first time, it at times demands such hardships. Burke learns, through her birds, to value intensely the present things — the sounds and colors of fluttering wings — even as she winces over the losses. The birds have brought so much brilliance to her own life that Burke feels it is her duty to share her birds with others. “Often I’ll give birds away, even expensive ones, to families that couldn’t afford them, just because I think it’s such an educational experience. They changed my life,” she says.

Make it matter.

College. What is it for? Getting a top-notch education so that you can start a successful career? Yes. Being stretched by books, professors and ideas? Most definitely. But at Biola, it’s even more. This is a place where, in an all-Christian community, you will be prepared for an influential future. At Biola, you’ll find a community that teaches, learns, and thinks deeply … and then does something about it.

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Southern California | 1.800.OK.BIOLA | www.biola.edu/makeitmatter